Guilty plea taken in county’s first human trafficking case

A Texas man faces up to 101⁄2 years in prison for a reduced child sexual abusive activity charge he pleaded guilty to Tuesday in Lenawee County Circuit Court.

42-year-old Jefferson Eugene Lawrence admitted he convinced a 17-year-old Woodstock Township girl to make sexually explicit recordings of herself and send them over the Internet to him in Texas. The offenses allegedly occurred between Dec. 1, 2010, and May 17, 2011.

Lawrence was originally charged with human trafficking, which carries a maximum 20-year prison term. He was the first person prosecuted in Lenawee County under the state’s human trafficking statute.

A guilty plea to the reduced count of distributing or promoting child sexually abusive activity was taken Tuesday morning by Judge Timothy P. Pickard. He scheduled Lawrence to return for sentencing on July 26.

He remains in the Lenawee County Jail where he has been held in lieu of a $750,000 bond since he was extradited from Texas in February. He was also sentenced in Texas on Feb. 7 to a 21⁄2-year prison term for violating probation in an assault case there.

Lenawee County Prosecutor Burke Castleberry said he believes the plea agreement accomplishes the goal of protecting minors from predators.

“We spoke with the victim and the victim’s family and the detectives, and they all agreed this was an appropriate resolution to the case,” Castleberry said.

The plea deal does not set any restrictions on sentencing options before the court.

“We would like to see a prison term,” he said.

The behavior that Lawrence engaged in on the Internet did fall within the human trafficking statute he was originally charged under, Castleberry said.“This legislation is designed to prevent sexual predators from, basically, preying on minors on the Internet,” he said.

Lawrence and the victim did not know each other before they began communicating over the Internet, he said.

A Lenawee County Sheriff’s Department investigation found that the video recordings obtained from the victim in this case were distributed only to Lawrence, he said. No evidence was found that the material had been shared with anyone, he said.